The prevailing wisdom in B2B SaaS is to find a “gap in the market” – an underserved niche or unmet need. But this advice, while well-intentioned, is increasingly outdated.
The problem? Everyone is looking for gaps to build their innovative solutions. We have tools to identify “missing” products and analyze trends, and low-competition keywords. This creates a paradox: the more we search for gaps, the less likely we are to find them.
So, what’s the alternative? In this post, let’s talk about how to figure out your next business idea.
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What are examples of market gaps?
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10 ways to help you identify market gaps
I have been talking about the relentless pursuit of gaps, since our article introduction. So, if not gaps, then what? The answer lies in shifting our focus from finding what’s missing to finding and creating what’s valuable.
Here are 10 ways to do it. Not so new but we have examples.
1. Track in-app customer behavior to find fresh ideas
Tracking user behavior inside your product can highlight unmet needs, user pain points, and opportunities for improvement and innovation.
Take funnel analysis as an example.
By tracking user conversions at key touchpoints in the user journey, you can identify where users might face difficulties, experience friction, or drop off altogether.
You can even take a further step to investigate such friction with the help of session recordings. These recordings can reveal unexpected ways users interact with your product, potentially inspiring product enhancements or even entirely new feature ideas.
By focusing on these areas of product experience, you can boost customer satisfaction and retention.
2. Collect and analyze customer feedback
Want to know how to better meet your customer needs?
Ask them!
Trigger surveys to spot market gaps
Collecting customer feedback in SaaS is easy.
With tools like Userpilot, you can effortlessly create and trigger in-app surveys and collect user insights.
Do this regularly to track changes in user sentiment so that you don’t get blindsided by new customer needs and miss opportunities to serve them better.
On top of that, trigger contextual surveys to collect feedback on specific product aspects. Launched a new feature? Trigger a CES survey to identify opportunities to make it easier and more intuitive to use.
In addition to quantitative questions, always include qualitative ones to gain a deeper understanding of why users are feeling in a particular way.
For example:
Q1: How easy was it to complete ‘Task X’?
Q2: How could we make it even easier for you?
Collect passive feedback through an on-demand widget
Don’t rely only on feedback solicited actively.
Instead, enable a feedback widget inside your product to give users a chance to submit their feedback when they need it.
Such passive feedback is much more valuable because users give it voluntarily and at a time when it suits them best.
Apart from providing feedback, users can use the widget to submit feature requests and report bugs. Both of these could be an indication of market gaps that you could fill.
Interview existing customers
Another good way to identify emerging market gaps is by interviewing your customers.
Make a habit of interviewing continuously so that you can stay on top of changing user needs.
Ask them to tell you about their experience with your product as well as other products – what was satisfying about it, and what wasn’t.
Don’t expect your customers to tell you exactly what solutions they need but analyze their feedback for ideas of new problems that could be worth solving.
How do you recruit your interviewees?
Reach out to them in-app and offer some incentive, like a voucher or limited-time access to premium features.
In-App Research for Identifying Market Gaps Made Easy! Try Userpilot
Practice social listening
Social listening could be a great source of user feedback, especially negative. That’s because users may be more open about their product experiences on social media, review pages, and forums.
And it’s not limited to your own product. Listen to what they have to use about your competitors to identify their weaknesses that you could exploit.
How do you tune in to what users are saying on the grapevine?
The easiest way is to use a monitoring tool like Brand24 that allows you to track and analyze mentions of your (and other brands) products, and keywords across the web.
3. Seek input from employees
Your customer-facing colleagues are also a great source of information about a potential gap in the market.
For example, the customer support and success teams deal with customer problems on a daily basis, so they can help you improve user experience, while the sales team can give you ideas for new features that customers are looking for.
Don’t stop there!
Talk to the developers and engineers. They may not have direct contact with customers but they may be familiar with market and industry trends that you could harness to make the product more secure, stable, and reliable, and consequently, offer a better product experience.
4. Conduct market research to find business gaps
Market research seems like an obvious way to find market gaps.
Basically, it allows you to gauge what’s available on the market and how well it addresses user needs.
What research techniques can SaaS PMs use?
- Industry-specific surveys focusing on unique challenges in your niche.
- Customer segmentation analysis to identify underserved user groups with unique needs.
- Interviews and focus groups.
- Commissioned research (from market research firms or academic institutions).
5. Monitor market trends to gain a competitive edge
Monitoring market trends is another way you can pick up new market demands and get ahead of the competition.
How do you do it?
In SaaS, your customers are most likely to look for products online. Use Google Trends to track interest in keywords related to your niche. If you see interest in certain terms picks up, investigate further to see what causes it.
But don’t just blindly chase every trend. Just because a market gap exists doesn’t guarantee it’s a good opportunity. Sometimes, there are valid reasons why there’s a gap in the first place.
So before you jump on the bandwagon, ask yourself these key questions:
- Who’s buying? Clearly define your ideal customer. Don’t waste time building for everyone.
- Need or nice-to-have? Is your product solving a real problem or just a minor inconvenience? Focus on pain points, not shiny features.
- Pricing vs. value? What are customers willing to pay, and how often? Does your pricing align with the perceived value you offer?
- Emotional connection? What process or emotions does your product capitalize on? How does it make users feel?
However, here’s the thing: analyzing trends effectively often requires more than just data. It demands a deep understanding of your target audience, which often comes from years of experience in the industry.
If you’re relatively new to the industry, reports are your friends. Take the State of SaaS Marketing report published every year by Userpilot as an example.
The report offers insights into trends in user onboarding. You could leverage them to create more engaging frictionless onboarding flows to activate and retain your customers.
6. Carry out a competitor analysis
Analysis of the competitive landscape is an essential part of market research.
It aims to identify your key rivals in the market, the functionality that they offer, and how much they charge for it. Most importantly, it gives you insights into what they do well and what they don’t.
Such insights are invaluable. They can help you shape your product development, refine your positioning and differentiation strategies, and develop a compelling unique value proposition.
Start your competitive analysis by looking at their websites. Collate the information about their features and map them with a problem that they solve.
But don’t stop there. For instance, additional steps I would do include:
- Figure out what keywords my competitors are targeting. What search terms are driving traffic to their sites? This reveals what their customers are looking for and how they’re positioning themselves in the market.
- Look within SERP features (people also asked, snippets, ranking community discussions, etc.) to look at pain points people are facing.
- Create a matrix to visualize the top pain relievers each competitor is targeting. This helps you identify potential gaps and differentiation opportunities. Are they all focusing on the same problems? Is there a neglected pain point you could own?
7. Take inspiration from international markets
International markets could be a good source of ideas.
Search global markets as well as local niche markets for successful products that don’t exist in your market.
What problems or needs do they address? Do users in your market have similar pain points? If yes, this could be an opportunity for you.
Want to know the best part?
If you build the solution, you can sell it using the data from the other markets to demonstrate the product value. It will also be much easier to price them than new revolutionary products because you can use the pricing of the other products as a reference point.
8. Attend industry events and conferences
Industry events and conferences are other opportunities to keep up with market trends and potential opportunities that could arise.
Don’t know of any events like this? Here are a few product management conferences worth checking out:
- Product Drive (Userpilot)
- Mind the Product (ProductPlan)
- ProductCon (Product School)
Apart from these, look for industry-specific events, like Chiang Mai SEO Conference or eTail for e-commerce.
Many of them offer online access to the keynotes and talks, so you don’t have to travel across the world to attend. If you can, it’s totally worth it though, because they’re also an excellent chance to check out your competition and network.
What’s more, there are plenty of webinars and online workshops that can help you keep your knowledge current.
9. Forecast changes in the industry
Keeping up with industry trends will only take you so far. Ideally, you want to stay ahead of them.
How can you do it?
- Use predictive analytics to predict future trends and consumer behavior.
- Stay connected with your customers as they’re often the first to pick up changes.
- Follow industry thought-leaders – they not only spot changes but often drive the change.
- Use AI and machine learning to analyze data for emerging patterns.
10. Monitor legal and economic changes
Upcoming legal and economic changes are other factors to look out for because they often bring about shifts in customer needs and market dynamics.
The introduction of new legislation or changes to existing laws could necessitate changes in your product to ensure compliance.
For instance, a new law requiring stricter data encryption might mean you need to upgrade your product’s security features.
During economic downturns, businesses often cut back on spending, leading to a decrease in demand for certain SaaS products. Conversely, in an expanding economy, businesses may be more willing to invest in new software, creating growth opportunities.
Therefore, understanding these trends can help you anticipate changes in demand and adjust your product strategy accordingly.
Next steps: What to do after identifying market gaps?
Once you identify potential market gaps, you may be tempted to act on the insights right away.
Hold your horses for a second though!
Before you develop a new feature, start tinkering with your UI, or start building a brand-new product, validate the new ideas first.
For example, to validate a product idea, build a landing page, use paid ads to attract your target audience, and start selling the product.
If it’s a new feature you’re eyeing, don’t simply copy what your competitors are offering. Instead, get to the bottom of the user problem and look for innovative ways to solve it. And once you have a solution, run a fake door test to gauge the customer demand.
Thorough validation will help you save a lot of time and resources you’d spend building something nobody uses (or wants to pay for).
Conclusion
Market gaps are opportunities to improve your product, deliver a better customer experience, and drive business success.
If you want to see how to leverage Userpilot to identify market gaps, book the demo!
In-App Research for Identifying Market Gaps Made Easy! Try Userpilot
Market gaps FAQs
What are market gaps?
A market gap is a discrepancy between customer needs and expectations and what the existing products in the market offer.
Why do market gaps exist?
The obvious reason is the lack of products or features that adequately address user requirements or pain points. They could also result from inadequate user onboarding leading to low feature discovery and adoption, ineffective marketing strategy, and poor user experience.
As such, product gaps are opportunities for SaaS products to improve and grow.
How can you tell if a market gap is worth pursuing?
Identifying a market gap is a great first step to a potential business opportunity, but not all gaps are created equal, especially if an MVP is still too big an investment.
So before investing your money and other resources into it, here are a few practical ways to validate the gap:
- Build a landing page with a survey or a button to sign up to measure demand. You could even do fake checkouts to test if there are people who click “Buy”.
- Run an ad to propose your solution and gather feedback.
- Give out your product idea where your potential users hang out (i.e. forums or communities) and survey them there.
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